Samples of blood are frequently taken from a patient to evaluate the health of a patient and/or to evaluate what measures are necessary to restore the health of a patient. In most cases, a clinical analyzer is used to analyze the sample of blood. The clinical analyzer is commonly able to perform a number of tests, such as drug discovery, specific protein blood analysis, and/or cancer detection from the sample of blood.
Typically, the analysis on the sample of blood is performed only on a liquid portion of the blood sample. The liquid portion of the blood sample is plasma, if the sample has been treated with anticoagulants. Alternately, if the sample has not been treated with anticoagulants, the liquid portion is serum. Therefore, it is often necessary to separate the plasma or serum from cells of the sample of blood prior to analysis with the clinical analyzer.
Currently, separation of the serum or plasma from the sample of blood is achieved by centrifuging a separation tube containing the sample of blood and a separation gel. Unfortunately, the time required to separate the plasma or serum from the sample using a common centrifuge varies between about five (5) and fifteen (15) minutes. Further, the common centrifuge requires a significant amount of lab space. Accordingly, a significant amount of lab time and lab space is needed to separate the serum or plasma from the cells.
In order to save lab time and lab space, a number of samples are commonly processed simultaneously, i.e., "batch processed," at a remote location. However, this can lead to delays and wasted clinical analyzer time waiting for multiple samples to be batch processed at the remote location.
Moreover, since a separation gel is utilized, the separation tube is difficult to clean and new separation gel is difficult to re-supply to the separation tube. Thus, the used separation tube and the used separation gel typically become medical waste.
In light of the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide a device and method which quickly separates an aliquot of plasma or serum from a sample of blood. Another object of the present invention is to provide a device and method which is relatively easy to use and does not utilize a significant amount of laboratory space. Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a device and method for separating an aliquot of plasma or serum from a sample of blood which is relatively easy to clean and is reusable. Still another object of the present invention is to provide a device which can be incorporated as an integral part of a clinical analyzer, so that the sample of whole blood can be presented directly to the clinical analyzer.